


Wordy

by Sandyclaws68



Series: Making Moments Count [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Coma, Gen, Hospitalization, Mild Language, New Relationship, Revealed relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandyclaws68/pseuds/Sandyclaws68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words can reach a comatose patient, especially in the voice of a loved one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wordy

Iruka strode rapidly down the hospital corridor, trying to calm the rapid pounding of his heart as he did. His anger was unreasonable and he knew it, but that didn't alter the fact that he was angry. One day he was confessing his love to the most exasperating, annoying, frustrating, yet still wonderful, man, and the next he's hearing about that man's hospitalization through the ever reliable Konoha grapevine. Not the most auspicious start to a new relationship.

Which was, of course, part of the point. It was the start of the relationship; everything between them was still new, fresh, and untested. So it wasn't like he'd be at the top of anyone's list to be notified in case something happened to Kakashi. And that was okay, since he really didn't expect much in that area.

And just like that his anger faded, to be replaced by the fond exasperation that Kakashi always seemed to engender in him. He wasn't particularly worried about the jounin; how much harm could he have come to within Konoha's walls, after all? So when he arrived at the room he had been directed to by one of the nurses on that floor he called out “Okay, what did you do to land yourself in here this time?” with just a hint of a smile in his voice.

That smile quickly faded before it even crossed his face when he saw who was in the room with Kakashi; a tentative Kurenai and an unsmiling Asuma. Then his gaze fell to the man lying on the bed.

Lying unconscious on the bed. Each labored breath that he managed to drag into his lungs barely stirred the covers pulled up across his chest and all the way to his nose. Iruka felt all the blood drain from his face as he took a step closer to the bed, only to be blocked by Asuma. He glared up at the bearded jounin, in that moment not giving a damn that Asuma could snap him like a twig if he chose.

“Let me by, Asuma-san,” he growled, and something in his voice must have penetrated the older man's anger, for he stepped back and let Iruka approach the bed. The chuunin fell to his knees at the bedside, hands pressed into that softness, fingertips barely an inch from Kakashi's arm. “What happened?” he asked, voice suddenly husky.

“Doujutsu. A Tsukuyomi generated by the Mangekyo Sharingan,” Kurenai replied quietly. A slightly strangled noise seemed to emanate from Asuma, and Iruka felt a surge in Kurenai's chakra that seemed to indicate anger. “I'm not going to lie to him,” she spat out. “And if you spent half as much time observing people as you do glowering at them you'd know why!” She pushed past her fellow jounin and laid a hand on Iruka's shoulder. “Uchiha Itachi was in the village,” she said, simply, as if that explained everything.

Which, in a way, it did.

**************

Iruka was still there, in the hospital room, anxiously hovering over Kakashi's unconscious form, when Gai brought Sasuke in just as the sun was setting. Sasuke, who was in the same condition and under the same affliction as his jounin sensei. Sasuke, who had attempted to fight his older brother and been reduced to a soulless husk by Itachi's power.

All this Iruka learned when Gai came to check on his Eternal Rival. If he was surprised at Iruka's presence in Kakashi's room he didn't show it, beyond a strange little smile that, under ordinary circumstances, would have set Iruka's teeth on edge. But it was his news about Sasuke that really set Iruka off.

“Will he be all right?” he asked, struggling to rise from the chair he had been in for hours (if his completely numb ass was any indication). His legs didn't seem to want to work properly.

Gai pushed him back down into the chair. “He will be,” he answered, his voice steady. “He is in the best hands possible right now.” He glanced at Kakashi's still form. “How long have you been here, Iruka-sensei?” he asks.

Iruka shook his head. “I. . . I don't know.” He pressed a hand to his suddenly burning eyes. “Long enough.” He tried again to rise to his feet. “I should. . .”

“Stay,” Gai said, again with that smile. “Talk to him. He'll hear your voice.”

It took a moment for the implications of Gai's words to sink in, but when they did Iruka felt his jaw drop open in surprise. Gai laughed softly. “I've known for years,” he said. “Before Kakashi ever realized it himself.” He laid a gentle hand between Iruka's shoulder blades. “He'll want to know you're here,” was the last thing he said before leaving the room.

Suddenly aware of his shaky knees Iruka sank back into the chair and tentatively reached out, laying his hands on Kakashi's arm. “Please, Kakashi,” he whispered. “I'm right here. Please open your eyes for me.”

When there was no response Iruka laid his head down on the bed and closed his eyes, barely aware of the tears that leaked out to dampen the bedclothes.

**************

Two weeks. Two long, agonizing weeks.

Iruka made his way to the hospital every afternoon after classes at the Academy let out. He had asked to be temporarily relieved of his duties at the Mission Desk, and a surprised Nara Shikaku had agreed. Without a Hokage the jounin commander was more or less running the show, at least from a military standpoint, and the losses they had endured from Orochimaru's aborted invasion were making his job that much more difficult. So if losing (however temporarily) one exceptionally competent desk-jockey chuunin was what it took to get one of his best back to health and back in the field he was willing to make that sacrifice.

Although something in his expression when he approved Iruka's request told the younger man that Shikaku understood more than he was letting on.

How Iruka spent his afternoons and evenings at the hospital varied depending on his own mood and which jounin were presently in the village. Some days he shared Kakashi with others, although some sort of word had clearly spread because he was always granted the chair at the bedside, and if his hand strayed to occasionally touch the unconscious man no one made any mention of it. On those days whoever was in the room carried on a perfectly normal conversation, even including Kakashi, despite his lack of response.

On days that Iruka had Kakashi to himself he would talk to him, telling him stories about his students and happenings in the village. Sometimes he sat and graded assignments, reading aloud some of the funnier responses to essay questions. “If you believe in a god I'd suggest you start praying that you never get assigned as Konohamaru's jounin sensei, 'kashi,” he said, smiling over the essay in his hand.

And his heart supplied Kakashi's reaction. A soft chuckle and quirk of his lips.  _ No need to pray, sensei; no god could possibly be  _ _**that** _ _ cruel, especially not after Naruto! _ But the Kakashi he watched with his eyes didn't stir.

Some nights, after normal visiting hours were over (he was grateful that the nurses didn't kick him out) he would set aside the assignments and his lap desk and curl up beside Kakashi on the small hospital bed, hoping against hope that where his words couldn't reach the other man his warmth could. He still spoke – whispered, actually – meaningless, nonsense words; anything to continue trying – desperately trying – to reach some part of this man that he loved almost beyond reason.

There were a few afternoons when Sakura came down from the floor above, taking a break from her vigil at Sasuke's bedside to visit with her “two favorite senseis”. Those were the only times that Iruka ever gave up his chair. She babbled an almost constant flow of gossip about people that Kakashi probably didn't know, but it was the simple act of speaking that was important, and Iruka was grateful for her caring.

And it was that flow of gossip that had brought news of something he had not allowed himself to hope for. News that Jiraiya and Naruto were on their way back to Konoha with Tsunade-hime, the granddaughter of the First Hokage, who had agreed to become the Fifth. But that wasn't the important part.

Tsunade was a renowned medic-nin, rumored to be capable of reversing the damage caused by the Tsukuyomi. She could heal Sasuke and Kakashi.

**************

After a particularly restless night and an aggravating day in which no children were harmed – but several came close – Iruka fell into a half-dozing state as he sat by Kakashi's bedside. It had been easy to do; too much stress over too long a time period, too many sleepless nights, and too much warm sunlight bathing the room had definitely acted against him. But he certainly hadn't expected to be so rudely jerked awake.

“The hell?! Is this really how you spastic monkeys protect an elite jounin?” There was a brief pause before the voice bellowed “SECURITY!” loud enough to rattle the windows.

Iruka shot out of the chair, kunai in hand, eyes wild and unfocused. He had taken two steps toward the stranger in Kakashi's room, protective instincts completely overriding his brain, when another, more familiar, voice shouted “Iruka-sensei!”. Then an orange-clad blur flew at him, catching the chuunin around the waist in a vice-like grip.

“Na. . . Naruto?” he gasped out as the arms around him squeezed.

“It's okay, sensei. O baa-chan can fix it,” Naruto declared. He tilted his head back and his shining blue eyes met Iruka's. “She can fix anything!”

Iruka looked up from the boy he held and got his first good look at the woman who had awoken him. She wasn't overly tall, and she looked entirely too young for Naruto to be referring to her as o baa-chan. Her soft blond hair, so different from Naruto's sunlit shade, fell in two loose ponytails below her shoulders, enhancing that youthful impression. But her amber eyes spoke of wisdom far beyond her apparent age, and of a serenity that only came from knowing oneself thoroughly. He tugged Naruto's arms away and stepped to one side, bowing. “Tsunade-hime,” he greeted her, keeping his head down.

He felt the entire atmosphere of the room change and lifted his head to see the smile that crossed her face. “The famous Iruka-sensei,” she said, reaching out and laying a hand on his elbow. “The brat has done virtually nothing but talk about you for the last two days,” she went on with a fond look at Naruto. Then her eyes drifted to the unconscious form on the bed and she moved closer, picking up the chart as she did so. When she was done reading she hung it back on the bed frame and turned to face them again. “Naruto, why don't you go and see your friend?” Tsunade said, not taking her eyes off of Iruka's face. “I'll find you as soon as I'm done here.”

Naruto opened his mouth to protest but stopped when Iruka gave a tiny shake of his head. There was something in Tsunade's gaze, something unsure, something that Naruto was thankfully unaware of. But Iruka could feel it; the worry that maybe this was beyond her skills as a medic, that it had already gone on too long to bring them back. And he, like Tsunade, didn't want to face Naruto's disappointment. Not yet, anyway.

He reached out and ruffled the boy's hair. “It's fine, Naruto. Go and see Sasuke and Sakura. I'll keep an eye on things here.” And content with that reassurance Naruto bounded out of the room, glancing back one last time with a brilliant smile.

As soon as he was gone Iruka let out the breath he had been holding and felt his shoulders slump. “Well done,” Tsunade's soft voice came from behind him. “You kept your power reined in and he never felt a thing.”

Iruka stiffened then, turning to face the medic. “You know about my power?” he asked, voice grating.

Tsunade shrugged. “I knew you mother.” And then she looked down at Kakashi once again. “He looks so much like his father it's almost scary,” she said, her words tinged with an unidentifiable emotion.

“He hates when people tell him that, though.”

Tsunade laughed. “Why am I not surprised?” Then her gimlet gaze caught Iruka's and they stared at each other for a long moment, until she dropped her eyes with a sigh. “I was going to ask why you've exhausted yourself for him, but I think the reason is pretty clear.”

“Am I so easy to read?” Iruka asked, feeling a strange combination of anger, embarrassment, and respect.

“In this case? Yes.”

**************

Iruka sat in the chair, head down on the bed, half asleep. _He'll be fine now_ , Tsunade had said. _This is natural sleep, and he should wake up within the hour._

A gentle hand came to rest on Iruka's head, pulling the tie loose and combing long fingers through his dark hair. He murmured sleepily, turning his head to take best advantage of the sensation.

“I'm right here.” The voice was creaky and raspy from lack of use. “Please open you eyes for me.”

When Iruka did his eyes were shining with unshed tears. Tears of joy.


End file.
